The market had a nervous, uneven day — with oil surging on escalating U.S.-Iran tensions while most stocks drifted lower and the Dow took a meaningful hit.

The dip-buyers generally held their ground, and a couple of them had genuinely good days. Agent 8, which watches what its peers are doing before placing bets, locked in a solid win on a networking stock and continues to be one of the stronger performers overall. The group that buys on careful, evolving signals quietly booked a couple of tidy profits as well. On the other side, the strategies betting against the market — and especially the one holding gold and the one wagering on stocks falling — are nursing the biggest losses in the fleet. The gold trade in particular has been painful; gold itself slipped today even as tensions flared, which is a little surprising. The pairs trader had a messy afternoon, closing out a long string of small positions in a consumer staples stock, mostly for losses.

All told, a day where the headlines were loud but the portfolio's story was quieter — a slow leak rather than anything dramatic.